Public Comment

Being in denial could mean not acknowledging something difficult, and/or, it could mean unrealistic thoughts of getting something, (any impracticable thing you're after). This is not unique to people with psychiatric issues. I know several non-neurodivergent people who are in unhealthy denial about their life situations. And if they could face a few bleak facts, they might be able to take necessary steps to get their situations resolved.  

Believing you will have the winning ticket makes the California Lottery a big moneymaker for the state. (While it can be fun to play lotto if you have the extra money, there is no realism to it. So long as you don't spend your food or housing money on it, you're fine.) But when wishful thinking takes over, it can lead to spiraling downward. I once knew a man who wanted to get a real estate license. Yet he didn't come across as someone with whom you would trust the massive cost of a house or other property. And I presume that for the real estate business as with many other pursuits, how you come across to people is vital. Impressions matter. Because of that, and for other reasons, his idea wasn't realistic.  

There can be a fine line between having a pipe dream versus being able to do something the naysayers are naysaying. Part of the question is of whether you can do the work involved. I don't want to rain on people's parades. However, if we want to be successful at something, it might be a good idea to temper dreams with a bit of skepticism, applied to ourselves. You must realistically assess what is needed to accomplish something.  

When I was a sixteen-year-old youth, I believed I could get a bottom rung job in Silicon Valley and work my way to the top and become a millionaire by thirty. The reality: no one would hire me.  

When I did get a job, it was the worst possible job you could imagine, and it was something that an uneducated person could get and do. The big ambitions were replaced with making six hundred dollars a month and enjoying the earnings. It was the beginning of the end.  

That was the early nineteen eighties. And since then, it has been an unintentional exploration to discover the basic truth about life, and meanwhile, making a ton of mistakes and paying for it with a lot of pain. But I'm not an eighteen-year-old anymore. And I'm trying to figure out what happened to my life.  

I'm not in denial anymore. Yet I have discovered that the life of a mentally ill person often sucks eggs. And that's a simple truth that you don't need to dissect. It provides a lot of subject matter for my essays.  

Even practicing meditation is sometimes contorted into escapism and denial. There is a woman who practices Zen, and she is in the middle of being abused by her offspring. When I tried to tell her that meditation would not work to deflect the abuse, her face took on a lecturing appearance, and she adopted a superior air.  

This is not to dispute the proven value of mindfulness. Yet meditation like anything else, can become like a drug addiction. Other people busy themselves in work, and they might dread how they will be treated when they get home.  

Delusions can start out as a denial system, yet the brain takes the ball and runs with it, and the state of denial launches delusional material as well as a disorganized state. The condition takes on a life of its own, and that, in a best-case scenario, ultimately leads to diagnosis and treatment.  

I'm not saying that psychosis is denial. It is a symptom of a biologically unwell brain. Yet denial can make things worse. In my past, acceptance of an unhappy truth was one of the things that allowed me to get better.  

When I taught myself to let go of "attachments" (the term is derived from Buddhism) delusions continued, and they continue to exist in my thinking, but they have a smaller amount of power over me--but still a lot.  

When a person is not afraid to face hard truths, it is a bit easier to navigate among the choppy waters of the inside of a psychotic mind. When you are not clinging to very much, you don't have much emotional attachment to the delusional beliefs. And that makes it more possible for people to talk to you.  

Delusions are interwoven with strong emotions. When you can resolve the emotional element, it takes a lot of the power away from the psychotic syndrome.  

But some parts of life are good. It matters that we do not give in to cynicism and pessimism. To the reader: Don't give up hope. The little bits of joy can be found here and there, and they could be anything. Just having a cup of tea with a friend, or alone if need be, is worth it. This week I advise doing something you like. 

There was a Zen poet who wrote about seeing beauty when looking down at the contents of an outhouse. If you can see beauty within the supposed ugliness, it is a definite form of power--internal power, but genuine power. ------------------------------------------------------------------ 

Jack Bragen writes and lives in Martinez.